


Close To Me

by jaxonkreide



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canon Divergence - Iron Man 2, Dramatic Loki (Marvel), Fluff, Hopeful Ending, Includes Art, Lies, Loki (Marvel) Does What He Wants, M/M, Palladium Poisoning, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, at least until I'll get to write a continuation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-07-12 12:48:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19946431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaxonkreide/pseuds/jaxonkreide
Summary: Tony is the only human to ever have a soul mark, but he's fine with waiting for his soulmate until they're fated to meet.That is until Tony is starting to run out of time.





	Close To Me

**Author's Note:**

> gosh, I finally finished this. I drew the art this is based one like almost a whole month ago and I've been holding off from posting it anywhere but the frostiron discord until I got this done. Which it finally is! 
> 
> Just a little fic as setup for the pic I drew and then got a mind of its own DX ~~yes, there will be more of this, but for now this goes to the rest of the soulmate AUs I'm not allowing myself to write until I finish the first one, sorry~~
> 
> The title of the fic is inspired by the song "Close To Me" from Sabrepulse! Listen to it, it's just amazing :D
> 
> And thank you, Sesil (Rabentochter), for helping me figure out tags for this like always XD I don't know what I'd do without your help since tagging is evil! DX

Tony has been lied to for as long as he can think. 

The adults tried to tell him that he was normal and he was only imagining things. The mark on his body didn’t give off a soft green glow, neither did it spell out a name.

If that was truly the case, why would his parents try to hide it and try to get rid of it?

They lied to Tony and Tony knew he was special.

_ “Soulmates and magic do not exist.” _ That is the lie they tried to make Tony believe.

But he trusted the soul mark on his own hip more than he ever would anyone else.

Tony was special. 

The only boy in the world to have a soulmate, somewhere out there.

_ “Loki.” _

He wondered if Loki still had to be born or if he was from a different world altogether. 

All he knew was that Loki would be his without fail. His own soulmate that wouldn’t try to lie to him, wouldn’t try to tell him that soulmates do not exist when he clearly would have the same prove as Tony on his body.

Tony loved his mark, his little nightlight that never made him feel alone.

Even after his parents died and no one besides Tony knew about this secret anymore, he didn’t feel alone. No, Loki was with him. They hadn’t met yet, but Loki would come and they would meet. Tony would be happy, not having to hide a thing. 

Tony waited. He wasn’t alone, not really. For whenever he reached out and touched the mark on his hip, warmth rushed through his body. Proof of the bond he shared with Loki. 

A bond no one else had, a bond the rest of the world didn’t believe in, a bond the rest of the world would never know.

Years passed without anyone but Tony knowing the truth about soulmates and magic. 

Years passed and no one knew.

Then Afghanistan happened and people got to know his truth.

They tried to mock him, torture him, make him lose hope. But Tony didn’t.

Afghanistan passed by and a simple fact remained. No one alive knew what Tony knew.

Now Tony had a new nightlight. Instead of green, this one glowed blue and Tony realized that maybe life was too short to simply wait for his soulmate to appear like a knight in shining armor.

It was clear that Tony was alone here on this world. He’d waited for his soulmate many years, but no child with a mark like him was born. 

Tony had a soulmate and there were somewhere out there, most likely waiting for Tony to find them as well, unaware that they were worlds apart.

If he could build a wormhole and tether it to the bond he could still warmly feel under his fingers whenever he touched the bond, maybe he could reach Loki.

And when they were together, they could finally be happy.

For Tony in all his secrecy and longing to meet Loki, had never gone out to find happiness without his soulmate. He didn’t see the point, after all, his life could never be complete without Loki, could it?

All alone, building a portal to find his soulmate, Loki, his happiness, Tony realized that he was dying. Poisoned by the thing that was saving his life.

Tony wanted to meet him, just once. Maybe if he could meet his soulmate, the waiting he did all his life would have been worth it.

He didn’t want this to mean that he wasted his whole life, waiting for something that would never happen.

Just once and Tony could be happy…

  
***  


Loki has been living isolated and alone in the forest for a while now.

While once, he had been considered a Prince of Asgard, nowadays he was a simple mage, living in harmony with the nature surrounding him on all sides.

Fed up with life on Asgard and his undeserving treatment by the people of it, Loki had packed up and left some centuries ago. Not after unleashing some final mischief, of course. 

Now he’d made himself his own name, one that wasn’t Loki, far away from Asgard and its influence where no one was aware of his prior identity and no one judged him for a rumored less than good nature.

Out here, magic was considered a blessing and Loki was cherished by the rare visitor he got, asking for help with a potion or spell. Loki found pleasure in simply helping people with his talents and getting a little in return to sustain his life so far out in the wilderness.

If he remembered right, the time of the year should approach when a few farmers would seek him out, asking for a replacement on the charm he made them to keep wild animals from damaging their crop. They always brought him flour of the last years' harvests in return.

Intermittently, people would seek him out in search of healing. For themselves, their family or even their pets or livestock. Loki had no need for the gold they attempted to give him for his service, so he asked them for this and that. Sent some out for a job a bit further away or merely let them help in his search for mushrooms that day.

Perhaps it wasn’t the life anyone expected of someone like Loki, but he found comfort, away from all the people, living peacefully without the worry of something going wrong. Without the worry of having to fix whatever mess Thor made yet again. Without being insulted for being as he is.

Loki had found his peace, alone with the quiet of his books and the tending to his garden.

Though, when winter comes, Loki usually finds himself restless. His whole body itching to do things, as if filled with more energy than usual. Of course, it would seem like that since he doesn’t have a garden to tend to in the winter and visitors are also rare in that time of the year, the long way to him oftentimes not worth the effort.

This had Loki deciding one day, to spend his winters elsewhere. In winter, Loki would go out and cause mischief wherever the wind would lead him. 

But even then, never again was he Loki. 

In winter he shed one name for another faster than any dog could ever lose their fur.

A single thing stayed the same whatever name he took, he was a mischief-maker and before long, people would be cursing his chosen name of the day. 

Loki still delighted in the chaos he could cause, he was, after all, at heart the God of Mischief, even if it had been long since he last heard that name associated with him. He wasn’t even sure if people still remembered him if they had known him out here in the first place.

Loki smiled as he thought back to last winter. He had posed as an angry ghost for a while, going from one house to terrorize to the next. Tripping people as they entered through the front door, especially when they had groceries in their arms. Opening cabinets whenever he saw fit. 

The banana milkshake he took out of someone’s hand, sipping it through a straw while watching the previous owner of it scramble away and hide behind a couch. 

And then they didn’t even leave! They watched him from their spot or rather watched their floating drink, emptying itself. When Loki was done, he couldn’t help snickering at their fascinated expression. It’s not often that people don’t run away right away when meeting a ghost.

Loki even decided to be nice about stealing the drink of this person and took the glass to the kitchen sink, washing it clean. By the time he was done, the house's occupant had come out of hiding and sat down at the kitchen table, watching the glass being dried by invisible hands.

If they were rewarded for their calm later that day by a randomly ringing doorbell and some fresh bananas and milk in front of the door, it’s not like anyone else in the village that complained about the aggressive ghost would care about what one person said.

After that occurrence, Loki left the village. A lot of people tricked and one person blessed. But he wanted to continue moving again now, there were a lot of people unknowingly waiting for his mischief still.

Now though, spring was slowly giving away to summer. Loki watched everything bloom from his little home in the forest.

Loki would have it no other way, here, away from everything that used to bother him, he was happy.

There’s nothing else that Loki would need besides this.

And then he felt all the wards he had placed on his forest go off, a power similar to the Bifrost radiating towards him.

Loki quickly jumped to his feet, he didn’t know what to do, was his past coming back to him? Had Asgard been searching for him and now found him?

Closing his eyes for a second, Loki opened them again, determined. Whatever it was, he wouldn’t run away, not now when he found a place to stay. A place to call home.

When he reached the place the energy had come from, he saw an unconscious man lying on the ground.

Loki could feel his sickness even from a few feet away, so he picked up the man and took him to his home.

The man felt impossibly warm, he seemed to be running a fever on top of the sickness that Loki could almost smell as well. 

Still, Loki found himself smiling. The first person to visit him this year.

  
***

Tony slowly came back to himself, feeling his whole body still intact. Especially his chest felt unbelievably light to how it had always felt since Afghanistan. He couldn’t believe it… he was still alive? Or was this what being dead felt like? What happened? Did the teleporting machine work? Or did it explode in his face, killing him in the process?

Only one way to find out, Tony supposed.

With that, Tony opened his eyes, surprised to find himself in a relatively dark room. His eyes didn’t need to adjust to the light, though he was also unable to see much of where he actually was.

But he wasn’t at home and this clearly wasn’t a hospital.

There was a person that had stood in front of a fireplace that now turned towards him as if sensing that he had woken up and they walked over to his bedside.

Tony found himself staring into deep forest green eyes that seemed to be dissecting him, stripping him bare of all his clothes and shields he so carefully surrounded himself with. Straight into his soul and Tony gulped.

But as fascinating and scary the stranger's eyes were, Tony’s own were pulled away from his face, it almost felt magical.

Tony’s eyes found the man’s uncovered biceps and froze on the letters glowing in a soft red.

Anthony Edward Stark.

Tony’s gaze snapped back up to the man’s eyes.

His soulmate.

He’d found him! Finally, he had found his happiness!

He had a face to associate with a name now and he could feel his heart fluttering at the prospect of getting to know the person that was supposed to be perfect for him.

“Loki.”

**Author's Note:**

> This will not go as smoothly as it's probably expected with soulmates when I finally get to continue this and I'd like to say in advance that I'm not sorry at all.
> 
> Also, I really enjoyed writing a put together and stable Loki for this? I'm looking forward to going more into detail with him when the time comes. And Tony? He's just a big hot mess man sdkjh
> 
> Feel free to check out [the art on my tumblr](https://jaxonkreide.tumblr.com/post/186505626884/what-is-this-me-posting-two-new-artworks-in-a) and maybe reblog it! Thanks for reading!


End file.
